Hack of the Week Award for WalesOnline

The Children in Need preview of The Next Doctor was always going to draw a huge breadth of opinion – but some of what I have read to day makes me wonder if the credit crunch has affected people’s brains.

Take for instance WalesOnline.co.uk, who under the guise of journalism (they get paid, remember) have trawled through the Digital Spy forums for opinions about David Morrissey, David Tennant and the potential of this possible future 11th Doctor, then printed them.

As such James McCarthy gets our Hack of the Week Award! A vague collection of nonsense cribbed from Digital Spy consisted of over 50% of the article for which this guy was paid.

Meanwhile, how can we trust the veracity of this:

…Someone purporting to be a BBC employee said: “It is my belief that David Morrissey is not going to replace David Tennant at the end of the current four specials.

“His Doctor is merely one possible future of the Doctor, and for reasons that will become apparent in the Christmas special, that won’t happen.

“There is one actor being hotly tipped to take over at the moment, and if I’m right it’s just a case of crossing the Ts and dotting the Is with someone who has been in many a blockbusting film, and, well I daren’t say more, but you’ll be surprised. Keep watching.”

In total, there a 5 specials. If this alleged BBC employee cannot get that right, how can we expect his "I daren’t tell you!" claim to hold weight?

And how did James McCarthy get this tosh past his editor?

NB: Please note that although done with tongue firmly in cheek, the Hack of the Week Award should be taken seriously. It pretty much means thatthe writer of the winning piece has failed to treat Doctor Who with the respect it deserves, and churned out a load of crap so thatthey can keep their quota up and get paid. While hack jobs exist, so will the Hack of the Week Award.

A long-term Doctor Who fan, Christian grew up watching the show and has early memories of the Graham Williams era. His favourite stories are Inferno, The Seeds of Doom and Human Nature (although The Empty Child, Blink and Utopia all come close). When he’s not bossing around the news team, Christian is a freelance writer specialising in mobile technology and domestic computing, and enjoys classic rock, cooking and spending time in the countryside with his wife and young children. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.